A blog for the Alexandria, Virginia, Chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Looking Back on the May 22nd Chapter Meeting

We had another barbershop performance to listen to as our meeting opener,
but guys were fired up about the show, contest, many friends in the hall, so
there was not much “listening” this week! Also a big crowd of members were on stage
for the stage presence review at 6 pm with Chuck McKeever.

Assistant director Will Cox conducted another great warm up and
got the chorus ready for a hard workout.Assistant director Terry Reynolds invited all new chorus members
since July 2011 to join Will for another orientation session helping
them prepare for their role as a Harmonizer on stage, at rehearsal and in the
community.

Right away, director Joe Cerutti took over director duties. He
congratulated Noah Van Gilder and Kellen Hertz for their recent
college graduation; Craig Kujawa for his plaid shorts and Jack Pitzer
for his special hairdo to match the guys around him on the risers!!

First singing was work in prep of our major performance on June 13th
at Constitution Hall.We worked on how
we will introduce the award winners with “Climb Every Mountain” and how we will
enter the stage singing a simplified version of “God Bless of America.”

Next associate director Tony Colosimo conducted a review of recent
barbershop craft axioms and better still, helped us see how to apply them to
our contest package – breath the vowel, champions are made at end of phrases,
and awesome breath yields awesome tone. Incredibly
helpful.

Then we worked long and hard on our contest package – with reviews by Tony
when we forgot, by Scipio or Chuck when we needed to tighten up
some moves, and by Joe when we didn’t keep the pressure on both
musically and facially.

Before our chapter meeting, our show organizers announced a surprise
guest quartet – GQ.They will be on our
show June 9th, and this was a teaser for guys to get a hint at the
top-notch show we can expect for our customers.GQ just won second place in the Harmony Sweeps in California. Members of
GQ are Katie Gillis, Katie McDonald, Amanda McNutt and Ali Hauger. They
were fantastic.

Ops vp Scott Kahler conducted the meeting period. Nick
Leiserson followed up on the show theme with a push for ticket sales, and
alerted guys to watch for detailed email about the show for singers, and info
about the afterglow.

Membership vp Phil Ashford welcomed a huge line of guests
including GQ quartet, three young men who were sent to us by Vienna Falls Sweet
Adeline chapter (YeEd heard that all three submitted applicants for
membership), and Shelly DeMarco who was in town.

We continued our meeting time after break when guys got goodies, picked
up consignment tickets for the show, got scrip cards, bought 50-/50 tickets
(cause last week’s money was not won), and a lot of quartets practiced in
corners and other rooms,

Steve
White spoke briefly about work and support of the FRIENDS OF HARMONY as our
cheerleaders and Rah Rah team.The
FRIENDS had a display out for guys to see all the many, many creative items
they have made for the chorus over the years and presented to singers just
before they went on stage. Thanks FRIENDS.

Jack
Pitzer alerted the contest chorus and friends that we will be cheering for the
16 quartets in Roanoke, and that we will have a ribbon to wear with the
quartets listed.So join in the fun.

President Steve Murane asked again for guys to tell him how many
tickets they have sold.So far the top number
is 32!!Steve is offering a $250
incentive award to the top salesman.

Steve also
announced that
he recently picked up our official grant monies from the Alexandria Commission
for the Arts of $11,975. Thanks to those chapter leaders who filled out the
application and managed this matter.

Next
Steve called up the 35 Harmonizers
singing in the 16 quartets listed below at the contest this weekend (current
Harmonizers in boldface):

Music
and performance vp Dan O’Brien
introduced CHORDWORX to sing for us.They already have matching shirts!!!

Later in the evening
SHADES OF HARMONY sang for us also.

Also during the evening we worked
hard on performing “Jersey Boys” with drills on better singing and stage
presence execution.

Before closing we went back to the
contest package.Joe and Tony
worked as a team to help us improve.

Closing went fast as guys were
busy with their quartets for contest, loading things to take to Roanoke (a
riser crew is needed there at 4 pm), quartets singing with applicants for
membership, equipment put-away.TJ
Donahue won the large 50/50 this week!

A big crowd was at the Hilton for
the afterglow where talk of contest travel continued, quartets worked on their
songs in the back room we use for singing at the Hilton, and GQ was working
with Tony out on the patio.

Until
next time – editorjack!

(This
message is prepared for your review if you were there, for your information if
you had to miss, and as a historical record of the great things going on each
week at an Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter meeting. —YeEd.)